Is it really DVD consortium's fault, or the implementation of player's navigation system? With my Denon universal I can just pop in DVD-A, hit play, and the music comes out, just like CD or SACD. I don't have a video monitor connected to Denon, and I don't feel a need.
When playing DVD movies, I noticed some players will go directly to featured movie bypassing the menu system, some other players will play through the previews but let you skip forward, some other players will not let you even fast forward the previews. I don't think it's the format's fault. It's the better engineering and UI design. Similarly, you can have DVD-A player that doesn't require a video connection all the times with proper UI.
When playing DVD movies, I noticed some players will go directly to featured movie bypassing the menu system, some other players will play through the previews but let you skip forward, some other players will not let you even fast forward the previews. I don't think it's the format's fault. It's the better engineering and UI design. Similarly, you can have DVD-A player that doesn't require a video connection all the times with proper UI.